howitzer

Battlebots are cool but participants would have to get physically together in the same place to do the battles to determine the winner, otherwise there's not much point in building a battlebot. Needless to say, this isn't practical to arrange for an international community like Eurobricks.

That's a hugely broad topic so it would be really hard to judge. Beside the aforementioned household appliances and power tools, here's few examples of non-vehicle things that I thought of while typing this include: non-mobile cranes, amusement park rides, GBC, kinetic sculptures, animal models, gym equipment, some types of construction equipment and so on.

I visited local amusement park just the other day and dreamed myself building some of those fancy ride machines. Somehow they feel like being at the core of what Technic should be, lots of mechanical engineering doing spectacular moves while accomplishing nothing except being fun. Maybe if power tools (handheld and tabletop) should also be included?

So I finally bought it. Here's some impressions: It was a nice few hours build, nothing too challenging though. The print of the Earth domes was well enough aligned in my copy, though the print otherwise is a bit strange (desert in Borneo?). I decided to apply stickers which I don't normally do, but getting them properly placed was a bit difficult and I'm not entirely happy with the result. I love the complex mechanics of the set but I would've liked more aesthetic touches for it, the wheel-legs in particular look ugly. It's also a bit too lightweight, when turning the crank it tends to hop a bit unless held down but other than that it works well and is nice to look at when turning. This was also my first encounter with the paper bags, and I like them except they're not transparent so one must be very careful so as not to leave any parts inside the bag. I flattened each thoroughly after emptying them and decided that I will keep them at hand until the build is complete in case some little part seems to be missing. Oh and for my purchase the local retailer rewarded me with a pretty towel:

Then there would be a discussion over the definition of "truck" and whether passenger cars are allowed

Thanks! I wonder how much force does it take to push them through, is there a danger of them getting stuck if dropped/poured over the grate or are they large enough to always roll over it?

Does someone happen to have a few Zamor spheres (part 54821)? I have a GBC-related idea which would benefit from filler balls such that they would move inside the module but not exit it so I was thinking of a ball that is slightly larger so that it could easily be separated from usual GBC balls with a grate that has 2L wide openings. So I'd appreciate if someone could make a little test build for me with the aforementioned grate and see if the Zamor spheres are caught but not stuck in it (as in they roll off easily) in it while GBC balls pass through. I'd also be interested in knowing whether Zamor spheres would fit easily between pins or axles that are 3L apart.

I don't think airplanes are, at least generally, driven by wheels so if a real life counterpart of a proposed vehicle should be driven by wheels, that would count airplanes out. By driven I mean that the motion forward comes from tractive effort between wheel and road/other surface. On the other hand, there have been real life cars with only non-driven wheels (motion forward comes from propeller/jet engine/rocket) so there's that. And then there are amphibious cars. My interpretation of the spirit of the contest is that it should disallow airplanes while allowing amphibious cars and such. Autonomous rovers such as the one above should also be allowed.

Then there's the part @LvdH suggested, or the combination I suggested, but if neither of those will work, I believe you'll have to look for some other solution. Of course you could cut a rigid hose (or 3L bar) to 2 module length and then use it with the clip part I mentioned, but that's modifying parts so purists will scoff at you.

Do you want the antistuds to be next to each other or the handlebar to be 2 modules long or the whole length of the part to be 2 modules? There are many bar-type parts you could use in combination of 15712 or one of its variants, depending of which of the above you want. The only 2L bar part seems to be 78258 though, so if it also needs to be clipped at center you might be out of luck.

In addition to Stereo's comment above, it might simply be the Technic branding. Some kids/teenagers might want to think themselves as technically-minded so they're buying stuff branded "Technic" as that evokes the correct image in their mind, even when the actual functionality is equal or less than that of the Creator sets.

As said, subjective. For me the BWE alone takes the cake, with it's unprecedented size, subject and mechanical marvelousness, not to mention the many modifications it sparked and the introduction of banana gears which revolutionized turntables. As I said earlier, I like the Big Red but while it's a nice set, it still falls way short in comparison to the BWE. I could write here about my thoughts of the other sets too but I don't think it matters much - both years were great and in the end it's only about everyone's personal preference which is better.

It's true that these things are very subjective. I like the Big Red but I can see where some of the criticism comes from (it's far larger than the functions require and could've use some additional functionality like suspension, but on the other hand, it's great to play with and all the functions work very well). Hardly anyone disagrees with the statement that 2016 was a great year though. Probably the best of the studless era.

Great work! Makes one wonder why TLG still hasn't ever released a proper grader set (yes there's some alternates but never a primary one) as your work here proves that it could be a highly functional and playable model with tons of interesting stuff, while still being very reasonable in size.

Yeah, others also noticed. It's definitely an interesting new part.

Definitely 2 buckets side-by-side. But as @1gor mentioned, buckets with central reinforcement exist in real life (I've also seen those in construction sites) so I don't see a problem with this double-bucket approach to simulate it.

I think this is exactly what happened. Designers put in their skill to create a great model, and then it was deemed too expensive for the predetermined price point and they had to strip it down. I got very similar feelings from the 42112 Cement mixer truck - there were lots of missing aesthetic details which really should've been there and were a no-brainer to add, but apparently those would've raised the price too much so what we got was a stripped down version, and the same thing seems to have happened here. On the other hand, kids who are into machinery like this will be really excited and not care at all about the missing details, so it's just us adults moaning about these things. Personally I would've taken a single 2000-part vehicle over it any day, but as a playset this multi-build approach is definitely a great way to go.

Yeah, they are 7L as opposed to 5L in the Liebherr. But they are also made of softer material which would bend under load and thus not provide the sideways stability desired from wider tracks.

If you include handlebars in the limit, they won't. On the other hand, for aircraft the limit is really, really tight and anything above polybag size that would probably be too limiting. I'd stick to cars and trucks too. Perhaps there's even possibility for me to enter in such a small contest.

Mindstorms and Control+ has been allowed in many contests though and I'm sure will be in the future too, so nothing's preventing you from including them in your build. It's true that there has been no Mindstorms-focused contest, but I'm not sure if that's a great contest idea anyway, considering the lack of participation in some of the contests where programmable electronics would've fitted perfectly, like the transformation vehicle contest. There just doesn't seem to be too many builders here who are interested in those and also interested in contests. It's also noteworthy that Mindstorms was only recently merged to this forum, while it is my understanding that Model Team has been there since the beginning.

Could be a fun contest, at least in the sense of being something novel and something to challenge Technic builders who don't normally build in System and also a good reminder that this forum has also "Model Team and Scale Modeling" in its title. There's a downside though: many Technic builders might not have a good enough collection of suitable parts to make a good entry for this kind of contest. I personally have some parts but as I don't really build in System, I don't have a good sense of the parts I possess, so entering would be difficult.

The non-recolour of the axle with pinhole part for Wrangler is indeed inexcusable. I don't really disagree with you on any of your points, it's just that this is the world we live in and TLG does what it does. I believe the set of flipflop beams will eventually be completed (same as normal liftarms) but other missing parts you mention seem to be more elusive. My pet peeve is the lack of pin-axle connector, the same as pin with pinhole but axlehole in place of pinhole.

That's not an exotic colour for a dragon. It's only exotic if you only think it as a pneumatic part, but obviously it has also many other uses which sometimes require recolouring, that's a perfectly normal thing to do. It's true that Technic is somewhat display-oriented nowdays, considering the endlessly repeated car sets with minimal functionality and almost no innovation. I also agree with you on the issue of new exotic colours which makes the recoloured parts almost useless, which is why I avoid buying those sets - I long considered buying the Land Rover but in the end decided against it due to the stupid colours. The flipflop beams don't really compare here because each requires new mould and reconfiguration of the whole production line (part counters, bagging etc.) so they are requested by designers only when truly needed. This does leave moc makers at frustrating position as there's a sort of a promise of this new very useful part but it's unknown when we'll get a delivery on that promise. I'm sure more lengths will be released eventually, but only as the designers need those badly enough. One problem with Technic parts is that they are generally not that useful in other themes (many are but mostly those which have been in production for a long, long time) so the Technic designers probably have to justify the need for new part more strongly than designers for other themes. Getting a recolour of a Technic (or whatever) part is much easier if it happens to fit in a System build than getting an entirely new part. Also, despite this we've been getting quite a bit of new Technic parts lately with tons of new panels and also new gears and gearbox parts and the small fake engine parts in the latest. What other theme gets as many new moulds designed every year for their specific needs?

This maybe? I think the CV joints are actually constant velocity, it's the third part in the middle which makes an U-joint not constant velocity.

Can we have a new, separate topic for the actual challenge where its idea and guidelines are posted, in addition to posting the results?